The Committee to Protect Journalists is deeply concerned by the
politicized prosecution of two journalists: Abdumalik Boboyev, a stringer for the U.S. government-funded broadcaster
Voice of America (VOA), and Vladimir Berezovsky, an editor for the news website
Vesti.

Both men are
standing trial in Tashkent.
If convicted, they face lengthy prison terms.

We ask you to ensure
all charges against these journalists are dropped. We call on you to repudiate
the systemic suppression of the press that has made Uzbekistan
a leading
jailer of journalists in Eurasia.

Boboyev and
Berezovsky were charged with defamation and insult of the Uzbek nation and
state agencies through mass media. According to CPJ research, such charges are
not listed in the Uzbek Criminal Code, and no individuals or representatives of
state agencies have stepped forward to claim they were targets of defamation.

CPJ research also
shows that the indictments were based on obscure reports from the Uzbek
information ministry's Center for Mass Communications Monitoring, an agency that
is routinely used to suppress the media.

Boboyev is a
freelance journalist who reported on corruption, human rights abuses, the weak
economy and flaws in the healthcare system, according
to VOA Uzbek service representatives. This summer he was detained by police
at the Uzbek-Kazakh border, where he was trying to photograph a group of Uzbek
labor migrants, according to the news website Ferghana.

Prosecutors later
charged Boboyev with defaming and insulting unnamed government employees, law
enforcement agencies, and the Uzbek judicial system, along with crossing a
border illegally. They also charged him with producing and distributing materials
that were a threat to public security with the help of a foreign agency--in this
case, VOA. That charge alone carries a sentence of up to 8 years in prison.

The case against Boboyev
is based solely on his work as a journalist, VOA representatives told CPJ. His
trial started on Thursday. If convicted, he faces up to 14 years in jail.

Berezovsky, the Russian
editorof the Tashkent-based news
website Vesti, told CPJ that he is
being charged with defamation on the basis of 16 articles that appeared on his
news site.The articles were republished
by Vesti and originated with other Russian
news agencies including Interfax, Regnum and RIA-Novosti, as well as the
website Ferghana.

Eldar Zufarov, a
so-called "expert" at the Center for Mass Communications Monitoring, claimed
that the articles "distributed libelous information" and that Berezovsky had
"committed crimes against freedom, honor, and dignity" of unnamed persons,
according to an account from Ferghana.

Prosecutors initially
filed charges against Berezovsky after he wrote an article criticizing Tashkent authorities for
re-naming a street that had previously carried the name of an ethnic Russian.His trial started last month. He now awaits a
verdict.

These prosecutions
are part of a disturbing
pattern. Earlier this year, the Center for Mass Communications Monitoring
helped Tashkent
prosecutors indict and convict Umida
Akhmedova, a well-known documentary filmmaker and photojournalist. She was
charged with defaming and insulting the Uzbek people through her work.

Last year, a Tashkent court sentenced
HIV/AIDS activist Maksim
Popov to a seven-year prison term. Popov was convicted for distributing materials
that prosecutors said were libelous and threatening to Uzbek traditions.

CPJ is gravely
concerned by the ongoing prosecution of our colleagues in Uzbekistan. Eight
years ago, you took the first step towards creating a free, independent media
when you pledged to abolish censorship in Uzbekistan.

But the media in Uzbekistan are
not free. Your government, relying often on reports from the Center for Mass
Communications Monitoring, routinely punishes journalists for publishing the
news, which is no crime.

We call on you to ensure
that charges are dropped against the journalists now on trial, Abdumalik
Boboyev and Vladimir Berezovsky, and to release journalists now serving terms in Uzbekistan on
trumped up charges. We also urge you to see that Umida Akhmedova's criminal
conviction is expunged and that activist Maksim Popov is released.

In the light of the
European Union's upcoming review of sanctions imposed in 2005 against your
government for the violent crackdown on civilian protesters in Andijan and
other human rights violations, we urge you to renounce the suppression of the
press in both word and deed.